A look at the shortwave free radio scene with logs, radio news, QSLs and much more...

Thursday, June 04, 2015

Britain's pirate radio stations are not going down without a fight

If you climb through a certain gap in a hedge on the crest of Somerset's Blackdown Hills, you'll stumble on a crime scene. Tied to a branch in the canopy of an old birch tree is the transmitter for Rage FM, Taunton's only pirate radio station. Owning it could get Alfie, the proprietor, two years in prison.

The former BBC Devon employee and self-styled community broadcaster, 35, isn't too worried about that. Pointing out local landmarks around the ripe green fields that undulate into the valley below, he looks and sounds like a posh West Country farmer surveying his lands. But to the station's 3,000 listeners, he's their favoured supplier of political polemic, flood warnings and jazz music.